The contemporary management of abdominal trauma is one of modern surgery's quiet successes. Advances in rapid computed tomography, haemostatic resuscitation, interventional radiology and protocolised selective non-operative management (SNOM) have transformed a procedure that was once routine into one performed sparingly and with precision. In this issue, Noonan and colleagues document exactly this evolution in a 23-year analysis from The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne [1].
